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Planning A Dragon Birthday Party

In keeping with our annual tradition, we thought we’d give you a peek at Clara’s invitation and a few of our party supplies like we did last year and the year before. And since a lot of you are trying to guess the theme that she picked this year (after choosing worms last year)… well… say hello to our little dragon.

Invite Final

The dragon theme came about a bit more gradually than last year’s theme, which was born from her worm-laden dreams. Somewhere between declaring that the book Dragons Love Tacos is her favorite (we even read it to her preschool class last month) and frequently requesting to wear her dragon cape around the house – it dawned on us that everybody’s favorite fire-breathing creatures would be a fun muse.

Invite Dragon Cape2

And just in case we didn’t get the hint, Clara started telling us that dragons were coming to her party. So we figured working them in where we could was the least we could do.

The invites went out last week, so that’s one party to-do checked off the list. As a recap, here was her first birthday party invite – which played off of her weekly photo project theme.

Inivte Clara Final

And last year we cooked up some chevron-y worms that helped set the color scheme.

Clara Invite Final

For this year’s invite we wanted to do dragons, but friendly Clara-ish ones. Which led us to the idea of Clara actually becoming the dragon. Oh man, that would make her year. In order to turn our little lady into a winged fire breather herself, we had to capture a cute open-mouth portrait of Clara. It was harder than we expected…

Invite Grid

As soon as we saw this photo we knew it was the one, just because she looks so coy, like “oops, am I breathing fire?”

Invite Final Pick

Although we were almost tempted to select this one and change the theme to Julius Caesar. “Friends, Romans, Preschoolers – lend me your play doh.”

Invite Arm Out

We added all of the graphics and text in Photoshop, trying to simulate the look of 3D paper cut outs where we could. As for the how we did it details, we just scanned some construction paper to get pulp-y paper texture (it’s a little hard to see here, though) and cut things out and made different layers of them for that flame-like look.

Invite Final

In previous years we’ve printed using Winkflash, since they offered postcards that were entirely of your own design (no words or graphics over them). But this year we had a Shutterfly coupon for 15 free 5 x 7″ stationery postcards. We had trouble finding blank ones at first, but then stumbled upon these in the holiday section. Fifteen of them would’ve been $34 originally, but they were already marked down to $24 based on some other promotion. And thanks to our coupon, all we had to pay was the shipping (so we upgraded slightly to get them sent faster by a couple of days). Total cost: ten bucks!

Invite Total Checkout

Of course we’ll be back with a post after the festivities, but here’s a sneak peek of some of the party stuff.

Dragon Party Supplies

It’ll all make more sense in context, but those dragon socks were 99 cents a pop from Target (Clara loves novelty socks so we thought they’d be fun favors) and that big ikat serving plate was on clearance for $6. We’re also going to have a dragon egg hunt, hence those plastic eggs on the right. It should be really low key and fun (around 8 kids and 15 adults). Clara actually helped me paint those $4 wooden castles from Michael’s while they installed our alarm system at the new house last Monday (I thought those would be cute on the table with all the food – and she loves to paint so that was a sweet me&C project).

Clara Painting Castles

Oh and the party will be at our current house because we thought it would be nice for Clara to have spent three Christmases and her three first birthdays here. Plus the new house is hardly in the shape to entertain just yet… although the errant centipedes might add a vaguely medieval vibe.

Psst- Tonight at 7pm we’ll be chatting with Kate Hall (aka: Richmond Mom) about parenting, decorating with your family in mind, and Mother’s Day gift ideas at the Barnes & Noble in Glen Allen (near Virginia Center Commons). It’ll be followed by a Q&A and a book signing, so we’d love to hang with anyone who can make it.

Comments

  1. rachael says

    Wait!! If Clara’s turning three…that means my little girl will be three soon, too!! I can’t believe it!
    Um..centipedes? My inlaws have them in their basement. One night when I was there my hubby saw one and used a book to kill it by cutting it in half (honestly, he’s such a catch!) and the next morning it was gone! He told me they can grow other halves and continue on with their little lives. I don’t know if that was to scare me or not. I still scream when I see them!

    Reply

  2. Rebecca says

    Staples online has a good deal on postcards that you can upload your own image. That’s how I did my wedding save the date post cards and they came out great!

    Reply

  4. Carla says

    I haven’t read through all the comments so forgive me if this has already been mentioned… Another party favor for the kiddos could be the boxes of oatmeal that have dinosaur eggs that hatch into little dinos (dragons). My 4 year old niece loves oatmeal because of them! :)

    Reply

  6. Holly says

    I cannot believe Clara is turning three!! It feels like I was reading about the worm party yesterday, but she looks like such a baby in those 2nd birthday invites. It’s been so much fun to watch her grow :)

    P.S. She’s all Sherry in those dragon pictures!

    Reply

  7. Megan Poletti says

    HAHAHA the Julius Ceasar one had me cracking up! Also your caption for the photo you ended up choosing is great.

    “Oh dear! It seems I have breathed a bit of flame. My my, how rude of me!” I imagine that in a British accent, of course.

    Reply

  9. Koliti says

    How do you get anything done? I imagine just rolling on the faux brick floor laughing out loud – those Clara fire-breathing pics are priceless!

    How about little knight-shaped cookies? Then the dragons can eat them!

    Reply

  10. Angie H. says

    Since when is 8 kids and 15 adults “low key”?

    When I have birthday parties for my daughters – inviting ONLY cousins (and their parents), grandparents, and our best friends (2 couples, who have 2 kids each), we end up with 11 kids and 15 adults (which includes the family of four that lives here); and it seems overwhelming.

    Any tips for how to make it “low key”? (I suppose the fact that I live in the Olympia, WA area, and my kids have birthdays in February and March doesn’t help with the outdoors usually being wet & gray.)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Well, one tip I have is make the food super easy! We’ll order a few pizzas and get our favorite cupcakes from a local bakery. There’s literally no food prep, which is nice and low key! We also get everyone outside (weather permitting) and I toss a few balls and bubbles and things like that out there and the kids seem to go to town and make up their own games and it’s all good! It definitely helps to keep the prep from killing you (baking all day or decorating every surface might take a while) and to give the kiddos a few simple things to have fun with seems nice and easy compared to lots of planned-down-to-the-minute games :)

      xo
      s

  12. paintergal says

    So cute! I love the pic of Clara, first one in the second row. For some reason I can hear her belting out Ariel’s song in Little Mermaid. The one where Ursula steals her voice. :)

    Reply

  13. Gilit @ Shoes Off Please says

    I love that she loves dragons! I think it’s doubly cute because she’s so sweet and innocent looking.

    My son literally only wanted tacos for dinner for a week after we first read that book. He loves to randomly declare that people will get “tummmmmmy trouuuuubles!” really dramatically. We usually don’t know the people he says this to.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I have this little box of small paint containers from Target in the kids paint aisle (it’s non-toxic and I think it’s by Crayola).

      xo
      s

  17. Christine says

    Rats! I read about the B&N event at 9:30. Just what I get for being responsible and getting other things done before sitting down to blog-reading….

    Reply

  18. Kristin says

    My daughter is going through a dinosaur/dragon phase. It must be a 3 thing. Must go to Michael’s and get castles!

    Speaking of dragons, my husband wrote and illustrated a small children’s book for our daughter featuring her favorite stuffed animals. Here’s the page with the dinosaur: http://dustinhiggins.com/?p=266

    (She got a gift card for xmas to publish her own book)

    I spotted some cute Castle birthday invites at Dollar General today. May have to go for those instead of Dora!

    Reply

  19. Jessica @ Decor Adventures says

    Very adorable. She is a brave little dragon-loving girl :-)

    I’d love to know how you shot those photos in front of the window, and what settings you used perhaps? Did they all come out that nice or did you do a bunch of editing? Especially since she is probably a fast mover!

    Hope the party is fun.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That was straight out of the camera in A mode (we adjusted the camera’s exposure but that was pretty much it) – the big trick is that we used our 50MM lens (it helps since she’s such a wiggly girl).

      xo
      s

  20. Danielle says

    Such a cute invitation! I can’t believe Clara is already three!! When I first started reading this blog you guys were still taking those cute photos of her on different fabrics. Amazing to see her grow up!

    Danielle at Framed Frosting

    Reply

  21. Lisa says

    How cute is that! I love your posts and so enjoyed looking & giggling at Clara’s picture collage! Thank you for sharing. You guys are awesome folks. Sending birthday high threes to your sweet girl.

    Reply

  24. Heather @ What Does She Do All Day? says

    I love how the theme just comes to you with kids this age. My daughter will be having her 3rd birthday party the same day as Clara and we’re having a whale themed party. The girl is OBSESSED with whales! She carries her whale bathtub toys with her everywhere she goes. I can’t wait to see how Clara’s party turned out.

    p.s. Dragons Love Tacos is a favorite in our house, too.

    Reply

  25. Melissa van Herksen says

    Wow, so cute! My son is also celebrating on Saturday at the same time but in Chile…I wish he would have picked dragons but he wanted to go with Yo Gabba Gabba…so dance we will and my older son is going to be DJ Lance. Thank you for the constant inspiration.

    Reply

  26. Melissa van Herksen says

    Sorry I also meant to shout out to Clara for choosing “non traditional” girly thems…she is awesome. My boys never go for the superhero, power ranger, ninja theme that seems to be going around. Last year my then five year old asked for a Samba Party…before that he wanted a Lion King Party…but of the broadway show not the cartoon. He was very specific….ha ha ha. Anyway I think it is great when a girl doesn’t choose to have a PRINCESS PARTY.

    Reply

  27. Michelle Quick says

    I love that you are planning Clair’s 3rd birthday at the same time I am planning my daughters 3rd birthday. We are doing a Rapunzel theme…she is obsessed with the movie Tangled. Love the invitations- I am making my own as well.

    Reply

  30. Vickie says

    I never comment but read your blog daily. I couldn’t help myself today. Can I just say HOW CUTE Clara is!! Love the dragon pictures! What a cutie pie. My little girl is 7 months old and I just can’t wait to have all the fun with her that you guys have with Clara! Thanks for sharing her cuteness with the blog world! :)

    Reply

  34. Megan says

    Hi! I’m a book editor/writer for Hallmark, and we have a super cute book about dragons–and they even eat tacos in it! I would love to send Clara a copy (a signed copy even–I wrote it) for her birthday. If you’re comfortable with that, you can email me at the address listed with a mailing address I can send it to. Happy birthday to Clara!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Megan! We actually don’t accept freebies, but the book sounds sweet so if we see it in the store we’ll totally buy one for Clara!

      xo
      s

  35. Jen says

    OMG! My son is having a dragon party in a few weeks! Were those socks in The Dollar Spot or elsewhere in the store?? Must have! Thanks!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      They were from the aisles in the back with the children’s stuff (near the bibs and washcloths and onesies and stuff). They came in sizes from newborn to age 5, which was awesome since that was the age range of everyone coming!

      xo
      s

  37. rod and sue says

    I noticed the faux brick linolium floor in one of the pics of your daughter painting..have you ever thought of painting over that stuff? We have it all over in the basement and its so dark, I’d love to paint it and seal it but it has a bit of a raised pattern (brick/mortar)andwonder if that would be a deterent? Let me know what you think??

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Would that work? I worry it would just scratch right off when chairs move or when a certain pooch runs through with his sharp little nails. It just feels too plastic-y to paint…

      xo
      s

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